Today, I am hoping for a chance to spend the final years of my life back there where the law is implemented and enforced on everyone, equally, regardless of social background or financial status. I am longing for a chance to live my final days where those who work harder are rewarded, respected, and encouraged; and those who cheat and corrupt get their due punishment and correction by the common law of the country. I am dying for a chance to finish my life where it is not too much to ask for the rule of law and protection of human rights.
Yes, my last dream today is to live in a place where my kids and the kids of my kids can speak their minds more freely and perfectly and give free rein to their imagination fearless of calumny, reproach, or threat and without anyone imposing their perceptions, ideologies, and beliefs on them. My greatest dream is to live in a place where my daughters, in particular, can wear the clothes, colors, and sizes they want and feel comfortable in without being incriminated or cast as libertines or debauchees or villains. My most cherished dream today is to live in a place where my kids and I would be happy, and enjoy life without interference from any self-appointed brainwashing guardian.
This country is dear to me but dear also are democracy, freedom, equality, justice, and dignity. These rights have blatantly turned into privileges since the ascendance of the present JDP Islamist party. Its government is so pathologically mendacious that it has ridden roughshod over its election promises and has done a complete about-face on its mottoes and slogans in order to please the “Makhzen” political and economic elite. It is the first party in the history of Morocco to lay its compliance to the elite on thick by digging deep into the pockets of the population and setting an all-time record in raising the prices of all goods and services despite the people’s complaints, protests, and sufferings.
This country is dear to me but its Islamist government scares me to the core. This government’s measures have opened the gateway wide open to the return of the “Years of Lead” by trying to shut people’s mouths, close different political opinion newspapers, and beat and track down demonstrators and protesters. Its amateurish reforms brought the Matthew effect policy to the fore to exacerbate the condition and vulnerability of the poor, create a treasure trove for the wealthy, and eliminate the middle class so as to prevent economic reform and political change and any possible ‘unrest’. Its repeated about-faces are exposed by its plan and intention to reduce to naught all previous gains so as to take Moroccan people back to square one and keep them busy fighting for survival instead of fighting for real democracy. Obviously, a hungry stomach will not think of principles or values or ideologies.
This country is dear to me but dear also are order, rule of law and respect of human rights. We have been waiting, voting, and shouting for half a century for real democracy and transparency only to be frustrated by an Islamist nightmare government which is obsessed with tormenting the people sadistically, continuously and relentlessly. Those in positions of influence (government officials, MPs, union leaders and others) usually use their time in office to maximize their own gains, to make money off the backs of others, and to secure the future of their children, grandchildren, and political cronies. In clear and flagrant violation of the principles of transparency and integrity, they endeavor to bend the rules and sneak family and friends into well-paid, top jobs.
This country is dear to me but its education no longer creates brilliant thinkers, or great philosophers, or outstanding scientists. It is, instead, an education that often produces cardboard Muftis who have only negative words in their vocabulary like ‘haram’ and ‘kafir’, and nothing else like logical or illogical, legal or illegal, reasonable or unreasonable, rational or irrational. These are the false preachers and religious leaders who appropriate the universal God for their own profit to deceive, defraud, and threaten people in the name of religion. These are the self-appointed holier-than-thou clerics who want us follow the “Monkey see, monkey do” idiom blindly and without logic or reason.
This country is dear to me but its policies scare me to death: whistleblowers and activists are often subjected to threats, harassment, and reprisals for their attempts to uncover corruption cases; zealous good citizens and anyone who thinks outside the box are subjected to intimidation and violence for asking for the enforcement of the law, for equal and fair treatment, for transparency, for accountability, and for good governance; the application of law is oftentimes eclectic, selective, arbitrary, and temperamental; and corruption has become smart, systematized and legalized.
This country is dear to me but its streets, neighborhoods, and sidewalks scare the life out of me. Our neighborhoods are ruled by anarchy and chaos with sword-wielding thugs, street vendors, and gangs of urchins laying down the rules. Our streets are filled with selfishness, greed, jealousy, and hatred caused by the pressures of life and exacerbated by unpopular measures taken by an obstinate, deaf and blind government. Our cities and villages’ moral standards have hit rock bottom; foul language and swear words fill the air because our schools, families, and governments have abandoned their true purpose and renounced their responsibilities.
I have reached the conviction that all the Moroccan political parties have hatched from the same egg and they expect change to come from the same old mentalities, the same incompetent people, the same rotten education, and the same boring speech: Both the liberals and the conservatives who had ruled this country for more than half a century had kept it ping-ponging back and forth between reform and a return to the past until they felt forced to hand it over to the Islamists in 2011. Unfortunately, the latter piggybacked on people’s thirst for change to win the elections only to put a kibosh on all hopes of reform by its unpopular and retrogressive austerity measures intended to satisfy the Makhzen elite and the creditors.
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